Artist/Mother
Curated by Rebecca Woodhouse
July 2 - August 1, 2026
First Thursday Art Walk - Thursday July 2nd, 5-8pm
Closing Reception - Saturday August 1st, 4-6pm
Society is forging new paths for women in the art world, yet true progress demands we confront a long-standing ultimatum: career or family. This show celebrates artists who have refused to choose, who do everything to stay true to themselves, holding on to their art — weaving motherhood into their practice.
This exhibition resists the false choice between creative practice and family life. These artists do not set aside their lives to make art, nor do they set aside art for family life. Each has created her own equilibrium to remain true to herself—sometimes that means painting at night, sometimes it means slowing down until her children are older. Motherhood does not diminish artistic rigor. It reshapes time, material, and perspective.
Society is finally doing a better job of giving women their fair share of attention in galleries and museums, and of adjusting art history to recognize the successful women who have long deserved a place alongside their male contemporaries. Yet true progress demands we confront a long-standing ultimatum: career or family. Mothers have long been pushed to the margins of the art world—told, directly or indirectly, to choose between a serious studio practice and raising children, with some hiding their family lives in order to be taken seriously. Artist/Mother celebrates the remarkable force of that equilibrium, creating a visible local platform for these women to present ambitious, serious work on their own terms.
Artist/Mother brings together different mediums, from paintings to kimonos, each with layers of material and meaning. The visual language moves between the abstract and the architectural, with moments of realism threading quietly through.
The Artists
Lea Basile-Lazarus is an abstract printmaker and papermaker whose layered works merge intuition, social awareness, and the physical poetry of paper. Drawing on decades as an artist and educator, she creates vibrant, tactile compositions that explore community, resilience, and humanity’s interconnected relationship with the natural world.
Artist, architect, and educator Cathy Braasch transforms daily drawing into a powerful meditation on time, memory, and accumulation. Her intricate works reveal how small, consistent acts generate unexpected complexity, offering poetic reflections on creativity, domestic life, and the evolving structures that shape our personal and collective worlds.
Dr. Kathy Bussert-Webb creates inventive assemblages from found and organic materials that explore healing, nature, and gender through an eco-conscious lens. Combining material experimentation with humor and curiosity, her award-winning work invites viewers to reconsider humanity’s relationship with the natural world and its restorative possibilities.
Rosalie B. Frankel is a multidisciplinary artist and board-certified art therapist whose practice emphasizes fiber arts and material exploration. A prize-winning artist who has exhibited nationally and internationally, she has also developed art therapy programs for children, older adults, and differently-abled communities.
Elizabeth Gahan uses architectural landscapes and abstraction to explore the dynamic relationship between nature, place, and the built environment. Rooted in regional imagery, her vibrant compositions balance structure and organic form, inviting viewers to experience familiar spaces through curiosity, emotion, and renewed connection.
Brooke Gassiot is an interdisciplinary artist exploring transitional states in women’s lives through figurative painting, cyanotype, and sculptural video installation with a focus on embodiment, ritual, and healing.
Karey Kessler creates map-inspired paintings that chart the intersections of memory, place, and time. Blending cartography, ecology, and imagination, her luminous works navigate emotional and environmental landscapes, inviting viewers to consider what remains unseen beneath the surfaces of both the physical world and human experience.
British-born Seattle artist Anna Macrae transforms found objects, recycled materials, and paint into richly textured works that celebrate the beauty of imperfection. Guided by intuition, chance, and a fascination with everyday life, she elevates the overlooked into poetic visual experiences that honor memory, materiality, and human connection.
Kelly Marshall’s multidisciplinary practice transforms personal history into evocative explorations of memory, care, and belonging. Drawing from a childhood shaped by neglect and resilience, she creates objects, drawings, and installations that blur the line between presence and absence, revealing the emotional architecture of lived experience.
Chinese American artist Lin-Lin Mao Mollitor creates paintings, installations, and fiber-based works that reflect on empathy, perception, and humanity’s connection to the natural world. Bridging craft, installation, and fine art, her practice invites contemplation of the unseen relationships that bind living beings together.
Suzie Mulligan creates mixed-media and photo-encaustic works that combine beeswax, oil paint, archival prints, textiles, and found materials. Influenced by her studies in Japan, she builds luminous surfaces through layering and excavation, creating contemplative works that reflect the beauty, complexity, and imperfection of the natural world.
Shima Star is an interdisciplinary artist whose vibrant work explores identity, migration, and cultural memory through color, pattern, and storytelling. Drawing on heritage that spans India, Africa, Britain, and the Pacific Northwest, she creates visually dynamic narratives that celebrate resilience, movement, and cultural connection.
Tara Tamaribuchi’s multidisciplinary practice examines impermanence, ancestry, and collective memory through a Buddhist and diasporic perspective. Working across installation, painting, public art, and social practice, she creates layered experiences that connect personal histories to broader cultural narratives while imagining more equitable futures.
Rebecca Woodhouse merges painting, linocut, and collage into richly layered works. Through layered surfaces and geometric forms, she explores parenthood, politics, connection, and the balance between calm and chaos. Her work has been exhibited throughout the Pacific Northwest and beyond.